The advent of long range, high altitude, nuclear-armed American bombers, capable of penetrating Soviet airspace at heights and speeds unreachable and unmatchable by anti-aircraft guns and most interceptors, appeared to render every conventional weapon obsolete at a stroke.

[citation needed] Due to the comparatively primitive Soviet technical base, development was protracted, and many problems arose, especially in designing a sufficiently small seeker head and rocket.

Improvements were made particularly to increase the engagement envelope of the new system:[7] Contrary to what was initially reported in some Western publications, more recent information indicates that, while lethality on impact had proven to be a problem, the warhead remained the same 1.17 kg (2.6 lb) unit (including 370-gram (13 oz) TNT charge) as in the original.

The Strela-2M was also procured for use on-board Warsaw Pact warships;[10] installed on four-round pedestal mounts[10] aboard Soviet amphibious warfare vessels and various smaller combatants, the weapon remained unchanged, but was assigned the NATO reporting name SA-N-5 "Grail".

An automatic mode, which is used against fast targets, allows the shooter to fully depress the trigger in one pull followed by immediate lead and superelevation of the launch tube.

With the launcher on the shoulder, covers removed and sights extended, reaction time from fire command to launch reduces to 6–10 seconds, depending greatly on the target difficulty and the shooter's skill.

An Israeli 102 Squadron A-4H Skyhawk was hit with a shoulder-fired missile 19 km (12 mi) west of the Suez Canal and pilot SqL Nassim Ezer Ashkenazi captured.

A-4s were fitted with lengthened exhaust pipes in order to prevent fatal damage to the engine, a solution made in the previous war, together with flare launchers.

[citation needed] A Strela 2 was reportedly used by the Islamist militant group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis to destroy an Egyptian military Mil-8 helicopter operating in the northern Sinai region on 26 January 2014 near Sheikh Zuweid (close to the border with Gaza), killing its five occupants.

The MANPADS is reported by United Nations to have come from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's large stocks, which have been widely proliferated after Libya's civil war chaos and have become a concern to regional and world security.

In 2013, Foreign Policy, citing rebels sources, reported the shipment, with Qatari help, of some 120 SA-7s from Libya (with large stocks acquired by Gaddafi and proliferated after that country's civil war) through Turkey and with Turkish authorities’ knowledge.

[19][20] On 24 June 1974, Palestinian guerrillas operating in southern Lebanon fired two SA-7s against invading Israel Air Force (IAF) aircraft, though no hits were scored.

[21] The Lebanese Al-Mourabitoun militia received either from Syria or the PLO a number of SA-7s, which they employed against Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter-bomber jets during the 1982 Lebanon War.

[22] During the 1983–84 Mountain War, the Druze People's Liberation Army (PLA) militia received from Syria a number of Strela missiles, which were used to bring down two Lebanese Air Force Hawker Hunter fighter jets[23] and one Israeli IAI Kfir fighter-bomber aircraft, on 20 November over the mountainous Chouf district southeast of Beirut (the pilot was rescued by the Lebanese Army).

[29] In the early dawn of 31 January 1991 during the Battle of Khafji in Operation Desert Storm, an Iraqi soldier shot down an American AC-130H gunship with a Strela 2, killing all 14 crewmembers.

The spate of helicopter shoot-downs during 2006 and 2007 in Iraq has been partly attributed to the prevalence of the Strela amongst Sunni insurgent groups of that time;[36] while al Qaeda is said to have produced an hour-long training video on how to use SA-7s.

[29] In late 2001, a Sudanese man with links to Al-Qaida fired an SA-7 at an American F-15 Eagle fighter taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

In April 2023, a video released by the armed wing of Hamas showed the simultaneous launches of three missiles towards an IAF aircraft after it had downed a locally produced drone over the southern Gaza Strip.

As in the War of Attrition, the missile's speed and range proved insufficient against fast jets and results were poor: only one U.S. A-4 Skyhawk, one U.S. F-4 Phantom and three South Vietnamese F-5 Freedom Fighter are known to have been shot down with Strela-2s during the conflict.

After these initial losses, changes in tactics and widespread introduction of decoy flares helped to counter the threat, but a steady flow of attrition [clarification needed] and necessity of minimizing time spent in the Strela's engagement envelope nonetheless continued to limit the effectiveness of US battlefield air operations until the end of US involvement in South-East Asia.

Results from combat use were not dissimilar from experiences with the Strela-2/2M from Vietnam: while 42 helicopters were shot down by various Strela-2 variants (including a few Mi-24s until exhaust shrouds made them next to invisible to the short-wavelength Strela-2 seeker) only five fixed-wing aircraft were destroyed with the weapon.

Due to its poor kinematic performance and vulnerability to even the most primitive infra-red countermeasures, the guerrillas considered the Strela-2 suitable for use against helicopters and prop-driven transports, but not combat jets.

[56] FRELIMO fighters in Mozambique were also able to field some SA-7s with Chinese support, although the weapon is not known to have caused any losses to the FAP, even if it forced Portuguese pilots to change their tactics.

[63] On 21 December 1989, an Aviation Sans Frontières Britten-Norman BN-2A-9 Islander (F-OGSM) was shot down by an SA-7 while taking off from Aweil Sudan, killing the four crew on board.

[65] In a case of mistaken identity, a Dornier 228 owned by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research was shot down over the Western Sahara near Dakhla on 24 February 1985.

[67] During the Rhodesian Bush War, members of the military wing of the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army brought down two Vickers Viscount civilian airliners near Kariba; the first in September 1978, the second in February 1979.

On 3 October 1983, at about 10:00 am, Sandinista soldier Fausto Palacios used a Strela to shoot down a Contra-operated Douglas DC-3 that had taken off from Catamacas airport in Honduras, carrying supplies, over the area of Los Cedros, in the Nueva Segovia Department.

[73][76][77] On 5 October 1986 a Corporate Air Services C-123 Provider (HPF821, previously N4410F and USAF 54-679, (c/n 20128))[78] conducting a covert drop of arms to Contra fighters in Nicaragua was shot down by Sandinista soldier José Fernando Canales Alemán, using an SA-7.

[91] Furthermore, the CIA's motive to remove and destroy Chinese copies of the SA-7 (HN-5s) from Bolivia in 2005 was the fear of them reaching FARC rebels because, according to a US military magazine, “they used the HN-5 against Colombian-operated U.S-made helicopters”.

In 2001, the Basque separatist group ETA tried on three occasions (29 April, 4 and 11 May) to use Strela 2 missiles to shoot down the Dassault Falcon 900 aircraft with the then-Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on board.